I’ve got a few .22 long rifle firearms, but overall, I’m not a big rimfire fan. The ammunition quality is spotty, to be kind. I’ve had the bullet fall out of the casing from time to time on some brands (and not that long ago.) Also, the weapons are usually finicky as hell when semi-auto: my daughter’s PPK/S .22 is a great little gun with the right ammunition and at least two rounds through it. (The second round on any trip will fail to feed, then it will be flawless…it just needs to let you know it’s not down to play.) The Rock Island bolt action she has — great: but it’s a bolt-action so it runs like a top and is surprisingly accurate for a 16″ .22 with iron sights. The Kadet conversion for my CZ-85 eats every type of .22LR and just keeps running, but every .22 conversion I’ve used on my friends’ 1911? Crap.

So, it surprised the hell out of me when I went into the local range while the kiddo was rockwall climbing and saw the new Walther WMP in .22WMR (.22 mag for the uninitiated.) After playing with my stuff, I borrowed some time on the WMP. After 300 rounds of CCI 30 gr. Maxi-Mag and Remington green box 40 grain, I had an idea of how the thing functions.

First impressions on the fit and finish: It’s a full size pistol with a 4.5″ barrel and an overall length of just over eight inches. The grip is 5.5″-ish. It’s not the lightest rimfire you’re going to handle and feel slightly heavier than my PPQ unloaded. (It’s 27.8 oz.) The grip is fantastic, as most Walthers since the P99 have been. The grip angle, finger swells and texturing is top-notch. The slide feels like aluminum, and when I looked it up — that’s it. It’s a hammer-fired pistol, which I like, personally. The sights are good — a fiber optic front and windage adjustable in the back. You get multiple sites of different heights to adjust elevation. There’s a plate system for red dot, in case lining up three dots is too hard for you. There’s cocking serrations fore and aft, and what looks like (but isn’t) porting in the slide — it’s just to lighten the slide for function. It’s got the usual blade safety in the trigger.

The weirdness starts for the magazine release, and honestly, I hope this catches on because it’s great. You can’t figure out a new manual of arms? Gotta have the “bullet button” to get the magazine out? It’s an ambi magazine release…but wait, there’s more. You also have paddle releases on either side of the trigger guard for the older Walther and H&K fans. They al can actuate the mag catch on the front of the 15 round magazine. Yes, 15. There’s a nice window to see the rounds and a little thumb button to help load the ammunition. The ammo is ever so slightly staggered, so I was expecting misfeeds. Didn’t happen.

Takedown is simple. Clear the pistol. Lock the slide to the rear, flip the slide catch down and pull the slide off. Pull the captured spring/guide rod, and the barrel. Done. It look like most polymer-frame pistols inside, but the trigger and magazine catch are more complicated than usual. It was easy to clean and reassemble without having looked at the instructions.

I vikked this from another site.

The barrel is fixed with the recoil spring underneath like most semi-autos, not with the spring around the barrel like the PPK. The barrel is thick, steel, and well made. Judging from the triple crown proof marks, Walther’s Umarex group is making this.

Second, how’s it shoot? One word: spectacularly. For one, much like the .22 TCM 1911s, if you miss your target, you just might set it on fire. The muzzle flash is movie-quality. The report is impressive. The accuracy..?

This is 50 rounds of “not taking my time.” 25 yards unsupported and a bit shaky after 150 rounds of 10mm.

It’s effortless to shoot. There’s almost no recoil, the sights were decent even for low light, and that was with no experience on this platform. The trigger is light — about 4 lbs. using my tip of my finger scale — and resets quickly and with a light audible click. Trigger quality has become Walther’s claim to fame; the WMP lives up to it. A few of the flyers were me double tapping too quickly from the muzzle blast.

The WMP functioned perfectly with the Remington 40 grain and gave two failures to feed (the slide didn’t get back far enough to pick up the next round) on the CCI 30 grain. Walther’s WMP website has ammo recommendations and they suggest 40 grain and speeds of 1875fps+. The 30 grain will “Work OK” according to the website. Both failures occurred at the end of the session, when the pistol was truly filthy and had come straight from the box without any cleaning. While apart, there was white packing grease in the slide rails — this probably was hampering cycling, as we had a couple of “is it going into battery” moments where the slide two stepped back into position with the 40 grain Remingtons. I’m going to blame the grease. After a quick rag cleaning on the line, the next fifty rounds wen’t downrange without issue.

As a light game or varmint pistol, it’s definitely serviceable. As a plinker it’s a tad expensive, ammo-wise; as a target pistol, it’s great. As a self-defense gun..? I wouldn’t want to touch this off inside in the middle of the night with no hearing protection, but at least you and the bad guy would be blind and deaf for a half hour. “Besides,” say the bigger is better bros, “it’s not enough gun…you gotta have a [pick you favorite caliber] to do the job right.” A 40 grain hollow point .22 mag moving at 1200 fps or s from a 4″ barrel gives about 125 ft-pounds of energy that puts you firmly in the .380 ACP range. And if the first shot didn’t kill, set on fire, or blind the target, you’ve got 14 more.

The Walther WMP was selling for $449 at my gun store. So is it worth it? If you are looking for a recoil-light pistol with enough power to dispatch a raccoon stealing your Cool Ranch Doritos™️ or a similarly aggressive wee beastie on a mountain hike, 15 rounds of really accurate .22 mag hollow points just might be the ticket. Or if you have to signal objects is space at night. (Seriously, the muzzle flash is epic.) I want one.